The Ha Game

This is the stream of water that was bailed off my roof earlier today. Can you see it? It doesn’t look that terrifying until your think about that steady stream cascading off you roof for 35 minutes.

Thank you Nor’easter. Thank you for further demonstrating that that roof issue I thought was fixed was in fact anything but.

I awoke at 6:30 this morning to a familiar sound — the sound of water hitting the carpet in my bedroom. This has been an on-again off-again issue since I purchased this condo three years ago. First, we thought it was the deterioration of the masonry on the chimney. Then, it rained again. Water still came in. Then, we thought it was a drain that was clogged. I thought we had fixed that after the last wintry mix that allowed winter to rain straight into my dining room. This morning, I was proven wrong. It was raining inside again.

I am so not amused.

However, this is not the experience my insurance agent had of me today. It wasn’t the experience of the nice woman with a Southern twang who took down the information for my claim. It wasn’t the experience of the two guys that came to bail the water off my roof. It wasn’t the experience of any one of the women that answered each question from my local Allstate agent. (By the way, it’s true. You are in good hands.) In each one of these encounters, I was laughing. I even commented to the woman with the Southern accent, “Why is it that we laugh when we should be crying?” I could hear her stifle a laugh of her own.

Last week, I received a blessing in conclusion of the Lewis Fellows. This other fellow wanted me to know how contagious my laugh is. He wanted me to know how much he wants to carry around my laugh for those times when he feels like crying. On the phone today, I couldn’t help but think of this blessing. That, and those countless rounds of giggling fits when our youth group attempted to play the Ha Game that one of my mentors is convinced led me into ministry. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it was laughter all along.